The Chinese Model?

Updated Oct. 23, 1998 12:01 a.m. ET

Beijing clearly hopes that depressed Chinese workers and cautious foreign investors will be heartened by the raft of positive economic data it has been spewing over recent days. The statisticians claim that over the first nine months of the year, GDP growth was strong at 7.2%, consumer spending surged by 6.3% and industrial production was impressive too, up around 8% from a year earlier despite the summer's floods. Does China's apparent success in dodging the Asian economic crisis mean its mixed economy and closed capital account...